Oral dialogue journals have been used in English L1, ESL and EFL classrooms for a number of years. While a number of claims have been made in the literature regarding the benefits of oral dialogue journals with regard to oral language development, more research is needed to ascertain whether these claims hold true for the South Korean context. In addition, one troublesome aspect reported in association with oral dialogue journal use in relation to speaking development, the extensive planning of discourse before speaking, calls for further investigation as it is uncharacteristic of casual conversation. This article reports on a study conducted over a three-year period with South Korean university students taking an advanced English conversation course. The learners kept an oral dialogue journal and reported on its effects. Using questionnaire and interview data, it was found that many of the benefits claimed for oral dialogue journals were true of the study participants. Unfortunately, many learners also relied strongly on written discourse to complete their oral journal submissions. To counter this tendency a number of task types and various task features were used to identify ways to encourage more spontaneous spoken discourse, some of which were found to be effective.